Meta' Secret Plan To Kill The Smartphone — With Alex Himel

0:00 What does the future AI device or devices look like? Let's talk about it with the head of wearables at Meta right after this. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed and nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. We have a great show for you today. We're going to talk about what the future of AI device or AI devices looks like with the person who's been running the effort at Meta, Alex Himel. Alex, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Always great to meet someone else named Alex. Very excited to be here. Uh well, it's great to have you here. We're going to talk about the new models, especially the Ray-Ban Meta optics, which I have in my hand here.

0:37 And if you're on audio, we'll talk about the products that we're holding. Um these are slimmer models that are meant to be used indoors or can be used indoors in a way that the others haven't been and it really opens up a whole new set of use cases uh for these AI wearables, which is what your line of glasses are. But, to begin with, I just want to start broad because these glasses that have had the Meta assistants have been within them have been in market for a long time.

1:05 But, I think folks are still trying and I personally am trying to figure out what the use case is. I mean, it's obviously great for photos and you can listen to music on them, but this broader idea of an AI device is yet to really shape take form uh in in a lot of our our minds. Um so, can you just begin by paint a picture for me of in the future, maybe it's a few months or a year a couple years down the line, how am I going to go about my daily life if this product works in a way that's different from the way that people are going about their daily lives today?

1:41 I'll get there, but can I go backwards first? Uh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. >> going forwards. Hey, look, look, everybody wants to do a take a step back. We'll we'll do that over the course, but I'd love to hear your perspective from the start here and then we can work our way backwards.

1:56 >> I'll go forwards first. The only reason I hesitated is that I think when a lot of companies and people have have tried to get in the space and say, "Hey, what's going to be possible with this?" I think they try to jump too far into the future and ignore kind of how to get there. So, I won't go that way. Let's get there in a bit. I think what you're going to see is that if you've got a pair of glasses that is already comfortable to wear, is already providing value as sunglasses or as optical glasses, like we're we're launched with the ones I'm wearing and the ones you're just talking about, then you're going to get more help and assistance with going about what you're trying to do during the day from your glasses. They can see what you see, they can hear what you hear, you can talk to them. Right now, I use mine a ton to ask simple look up questions, like if I'm driving and my 6-year-old son is in the back just pegging me with questions, I can ask my glasses without having to take my eyes off the road and hands off the wheel. And you're going to see more use cases develop as the AI is getting better insanely rapidly. And so, you'll be able to do things like instead of saying, "What am I looking at?" you'll be able to say, "Help me do this thing that I would normally have to look up a YouTube video to walk me through or look at a reel online." Or, you'll be able to say, "Hey, summarize the conversation that you and I just had to give me kind of the highlights from it." And so, it'll be this proactive assistance that you can get and it'll be like feel it'll feel like you have an assistant that's always with you, not taking you out of the physical world, but just helping you do what you're already trying to do. Okay, but walk me through a day in the life of Alex Himel wearing these glasses and having the technology be where you want it to be. You wake up in the morning, put the glasses on, and talk a little bit about the things that you're going to do. Like give us like tell us a story basically of like how your life will be different wearing a pair of these. Yeah, I'm waking up in the morning. The first thing I do is go for a run. So, I'm putting on my Oakley Metal Vanguard sunglasses and wearing my Garmin watch.

3:54 As I'm running, the glasses are automatically taking a few videos as I go. Stay tuned to get Stay tuned and get together is a real for me. That feature is already live. As I'm running, I can ask my glasses for stats for how far I've run, for updates on the training program that I'm doing. That's also live and getting better. When I get back, I'm starting to make lunch for the kids to pack it for them to go to school. Um I notice I've run out of Ziploc bags and Nutella, and I ask my glasses to order those for me to replace them. They arrive a few hours later at my house.

4:32 Um I'm driving the kids to school. They're asking me some questions about um what they're doing after school, what time is their practice, who are they playing in their Little League game today. Um my glasses tell me the answer to that. Um so I don't need to look it up on my phone. Um I go to work. I'm in series of meetings. Uh notes are taken on my behalf by the AI with uh next steps, people who own action items. Um that's automatically sent out to the people uh who were present and were able to follow up on those. I'm in a conversation with you. I can't remember the name of someone that I think we both mutually knew from New York, where we're both from.

5:12 Um my glasses help me remember uh what I was trying to remember in the moment. Um and kind of goes from there. But you can see it's a companion, it's always with me, um and it's taking the things I'm already doing and just making them a little bit easier for me. Okay, first of all, thank you. That was a very detailed, well-detailed uh example of how this could could change. Uh and I think as we start thinking about the way that an AI assistant might end up helping us in life, like these examples uh really help. For instance, um just to obviously, sports has been something that we've seen wearables in for a long time now. So, those of us who are like runners, we know what the wearable world is about. I know you have a Garmin, I'll just say. I've been wearing the Garmin, too. And the thing I hate is um having to check the watch, like looking down at the watch while I'm running, cuz it just like it is an unnatural movement. And so, if you could see that on the glasses, that's great. But let me let me challenge you for a moment on whether glasses are the right form factor.

6:15 >> Sure. So, you know, I'm going to think through some of the use cases that you're talking about. For instance, getting updates uh about the run. And and if you're wearing the Oakleys, well, can't you do that on on headphones? And then you're working on preparing lunch. Can't you do that on like a smart speaker, like Alexa? And then, you know, potentially you're in a meeting, maybe your headphones is taking that as the input, and I don't think a laptop is going away. So, you will see that on the laptop. So, obviously, you know, we're here again, we're at Meta headquarters here in Menlo Park, California. We have a bunch of different models of glasses in front of us. They initially weren't conceived as an AI device. These were mostly for, you know, taking photos and and videos and listening to music. And then AI came about later. And we could So, kind of a fun story about how that happened. Tell We can talk about that.

7:06 But why glasses in particular and why not the other form factors that other companies are talking about? >> All right, that's an invitation to take a step backwards. So, Yeah, you can do it. Not too >> it. Not too far back. I won't I won't go too far back. I won't go too far back. But I think the one of my favorite analogies is that an escalator never breaks, it becomes stairs. And so, similarly, the glasses, even if they run out of battery and they're or they're just turned off, they're still something you would wear if you wear optical glasses or you wear sunglasses. They're still providing value to you.

7:39 And I think the approach that we took with glasses, which is different from what I think some other companies have taken, where it was really about how do we leapfrog forward massively with technology. It's that, look, even if the glasses are doing nothing, they're Ray-Bans, which is the most Ray-Ban Wayfarers, the most popular brand and style in the world of all time. So, they're comfortable, they're good-looking, we have a number of different colors and styles and SKUs.

8:03 You can find something that you like and looks good on you. And so, even when they're doing nothing, they're providing value. So, part of the bet there, and part of the thesis is, this is something you'd wear anyway as you're going about your activity. You're right that I could go running with headphones, and if I'm if it's early in the morning and it's dark out, I don't want to wear sunglasses, I want to wear either nothing or clear lenses. But, the ugly meta vanguard's here, they're not only sunglasses, which I do like to run to wear when it's bright out, they're also headphones. So, if I want to listen to music, they are playing music for me.

8:34 Um so, they're providing a few different pieces of value, and then on top of that, I can use the AI. So, that's part of the bet. And so, some of the devices that you mentioned, I could put a smart speaker in my home, I could do other things, but that's an additional device on top of something I'd I'd already be using. But, I we don't think glasses are going to be the only form factor. I do think they're the most common form factor. When I think, how many people do I know, kids included, who do not wear sunglasses or optical glasses? I have to I can think of one person.

9:05 Literally only one that I know. >> deal? Um They're a unique human, and I'm not going to I'm not going to go into it. I will say they wake up and stare into the sun for 20 minutes cuz they think it's good for their eyes in the morning, so that they're they're a unique person. >> We're not going to take their advice on that. Folks, do not look directly into the sun. Okay. Um But, most people do. Then, when you look past that, you know, we like to look at other form factors. When we say wearables, the way I like to think about this space is I think humans have already evolved to what uh works well, what form factors are comfortable to wear. And so, we think that you'll kind of see popularity in that order. What are things you're already wearing and using?

9:42 Glasses, number one. But excited about other things that people are already wearing and not very excited about ones that you don't see people using frequently. Like some of these devices that you clip on or that you If you don't see a lot of people doing that already with the analog versions, I think it's unlikely that you're going to see an AI version take off. Okay, so it's the fact that it's a common device. It has utility outside of the AI.

10:07 Means that it won't be too much of an addition to put on your body to wear. And therefore it has the best chance of winning. Yeah, if it's providing value outside of the AI and then the AI is going to keep getting better and providing more value as it gets better. So let's talk about the AI. Uh Meta is in the process of developing uh personal superintelligence as the company uh describes it. We are. And I imagine that personal personal superintelligence will go into these glasses.

10:37 So I'd love to hear your perspective on what personal superintelligence is. Um we like to think of it as how can the AI empower you to be the best version of you? At least that's the way we think about it in wearables. And so we don't we're not envisioning a world where the devices you're using or the wearables you're wearing are taking you out of the the world that you're in. So how can we we we talk about being present yet connected? You want to be connected so you have tools that help you, but it's really about being present with the people you're with, the local businesses that you're in, the experience that you're in. One of the best examples is, you know, I go to my kids' performances at their school and instead of holding my phone up to watch the thing they're doing through a video screen, I'm watching it through my glasses and the glasses are recording it. So it's allowing me to be more present in that moment um rather than having to be removed from it just so I can have a video of it.

11:38 Yeah, I had a experience. Uh I was in Thailand and there was this beautiful sunset. And I wanted to reach for my phone, but I remembered I had the glasses on. And I just filmed it there and I have that memory. But I was there just like living it and not looking at it through a screen, which was really nice. Yeah, and and and that's where we're going, too. And I think that you can imagine stuff like that. You can imagine little ways that the AI can start to make it better. We um auto capture is something that we're launching. Imagine it's the same thing, but the glasses can automatically detect that there's a moment worth um worth capturing. You can imagine you're at a kids' birthday party and rather than constantly having to trigger photos or videos or a plotted device, it can sees a smile, there's a birthday cake, it can capture those moments that you want to make sure you didn't miss.

12:27 Really? But then the question is like do you trust it really? Like like cuz that gives it the opportunity to capture images whenever you know, whenever you're doing anything. And there are times where even if I'm wearing those glasses, I don't necessarily want it to record. Yeah, so you had you explicitly enter a live you explicitly enter a session where you say I'll start live capture. So, it'll be let's say you're at a party, then you'll say you can capture it and it will.

12:52 Yeah, at a birthday party or um sunset's coming up or some moment where you think something's going to happen that I want to make sure I don't miss. I'm sure you've had some experiences where something will happen and you're like, "Oh my god, I cannot believe I didn't get my phone out or my glasses out to capture that." Yeah, that's pretty cool. So, let's talk a little bit about the history here. Like I think for for us, you know, we're deep into the tech world.

13:18 It it sort of makes sense to be wearing an AI around, but there is an argument, you know, looking at history that it's there have been attempts to do it, and it hasn't worked. Thinking about the Humane pin for instance or the Google Glass. So, what do you think is different about this time? I mean, I think the biggest thing is that at the core, it's a good-looking, comfortable, stylish pair of glasses. I mean, it's the reason we're partnering closely with Essilor Luxottica. They're our uh partner we've been working with for years. They're the makers of Ray-Ban, Oakley. They have many other brands, um both owned and licensed. They have a number of stores.

13:56 They are experts at lenses, experts at manufacturing. And working with them is because they deeply understand what it means to have a good-looking, stylish, comfortable pair of glasses that works well for people. And that is the core of what we're trying to do with the glasses. And so, we've we've launched the Ray-Ban Wayfarer was the first. Then we had other Ray-Ban styles. We've launched the Oakley Meta Vanguards, which are sport. The Oakley Meta Haustons, which are lifestyle Oakleys.

14:23 That's just the beginning of what we want to be a really broad selection of brands, and styles, and SKUs. We want them Everyone's face is shaped differently. Uh everyone has a different sense of style, and we need to make sure that they're comfortable, and people like how they look at them. So, I definitely agree with you that the way that these things have looked has been a a major impediment to them. Google Glass for instance didn't win any fashion awards. And you look at a pair of uh Ray-Ban Metas, and you know, they they look nice. Like I I would like look at them at a glasses store and be like you know, maybe maybe these.

14:58 Um but the other part of it is function, right? Like what can they do for you? And I think that the the lift that they would give you was never enough, even if they were stylish, to merit charging up another device and putting it on. And I mean, if you think about what it takes to I mean, this is a company that knows consumer behavior so well. What it takes to change consumer behavior is crazy, right? People sort of get set in their ways and so and that's the way that they operate. And if you think about them using phones for instance, um to to be able to have AI functionality on your phone and then to move to start using it somewhere else, it has to be more than it's just it just looks a little bit good. So, how do you think about creating what effectively you're trying to do is create a brand new consumer behavior. Uh our top use case on the glasses is audio. It's talking on the phone or it's listening to music. The thing I usually tell people is, "Hey, if you're going to be walking outside, which you should do.

16:02 It's healthy for you. It's good to move around during the day, get some sunlight, and you've got to make phone calls, this is a great product for you. We've got it's comfortable, the audio is very loud, the mics perform better than any earbuds you could get because we've got five microphones and we um have amazing noise suppression. And so, if you're going to do phone calls, it's great. I was just skiing and I was going downhill at 40 miles an hour wearing my Oakley Meta Vanguard's and got a call from my friend I was trying to meet up with and had a conversation with him while I was on my way and I asked him in the middle, "Can you tell that I'm skiing right now?" and he actually didn't realize. Wow. So, it's it's great for like it's great for those use cases. Or if you're on on the beach throwing the football around, it's just it's listening to some music, it's a great way to um make the experience better. Photos and videos are are the other thing we see a lot of content shared on Instagram that otherwise wouldn't have be captured wouldn't not be captured. We saw some great footage from the Olympics that just happened with practice rounds. Um one of my good friends is a firefighter who was sending me a video uh yesterday from the fire truck that he was uh you know, driving to the scene and and rescuing someone. I mean, you're just seeing some great footage that you otherwise would miss.

17:14 And then the AI is where I think you're going to see the next real trajectory of growth as people find that they're able to do things they never thought were possible and are just really convenient with their glasses. And so it's interesting to hear you say, okay, use case number one is the speaker, use case number two, photo video. Um is the reason why AI is below that because is it because the AI isn't good enough yet? What do you think is holding AI back? I mean, if you think about the power that people say AI has, you would imagine that it should be use case number one.

17:48 The potential of AI is undoubtedly way higher than anything else right now. Just if you just look at the sheer rate of improvement in the industry, it is it's mind-boggling. I think for a lot of people when uh for a lot of people still when they're looking at AI, it looks like a blank canvas on a wall. It's like it's like if I handed you a piece of paper and a marker and said, all right, make me something great, kind of don't know what to start with.

18:16 Um and so part of what we're doing while we start with auto capture and we'll have some other um things launch shortly that are very relatable. It's just trying to give people easy to understand, easy to use things with AI and over time you'll be able to do more and more complex uh and advanced tasks that really take advantage of the underlying capabilities. I think people are still learning how to best use AI. I mean, it started as in general, it started as a tool to help you write things and I think now you're seeing people are coding with it in new and crazy ways. You're starting to see agents and agentic behavior take off where you can give the AI a goal and it will go accomplish something for you while you're not actively prompting it.

18:59 So I I I think we're seeing that progress happen quickly and we believe that wearables will be the best form factor eventually for the AI because they're always with you, they can see what you see, They can hear what you hear. And they're something you can talk to throughout the day when you need it. And they can be proactive. And they can do things that you didn't ask them to do, but that are helpful. And it's interesting. So, we talk talking about this new world that we seem to be heading in where into where AI is agentic and doing stuff for us.

19:31 The uh older versions of the Ray-Bans uh the Meta Ray-Bans were um mostly for outdoor use. I mean, I have a pair here, right? These are Oakleys. They're great for sports. Great for sports. Um and actually, I spoke with spoken with the um the person who ended up leading the Google Glass project. And one of his biggest regrets was actually starting it as an indoor product. Um because these things are much better people have feel much better about them if you're outdoors with them as opposed to if you're indoors with them. But, that brings us to this new pair, the Ray-Ban Meta optics, which are coming out uh for sale this month in April.

20:12 They are smaller. They're lighter. The battery life runs longer. Clearly, they're much more indoor than they are for outdoor use. And that just sort of opens up the aperture of what you can end up doing with this again going back to this idea of this AI assistant or this personal super intelligence that's with you all the time. So, can you talk a little bit about the product decisions behind building a pair like this and what will it enable when you start wearing it indoors? Let's say while you're at work.

20:44 Yeah, we're very excited about the Ray-Ban Meta optics that um we're launching right now. I mean, there are a number of reasons to start with uh sunglasses. One, which is kind of the the There's a practical one and there's a use case one. On the use case is, you know, it started with hey, talking on the telephone, taking photos and videos. A lot of those are outdoor scenarios where you're out and about. Um you want your hands to be free, you're talking on the phone, uh, the sunglasses work very well there.

21:11 Also, as you're trying to a lot of what we do is take electronics and squeeze them into really tight form factors, and sunglasses tend to be a bit bigger in style than optical frames do. You wear them for shorter periods of time, so they can be a little bit heavier, but also they just, style-wise, they tend to be thicker, uh, than than the optical frames that you wear all day. Um, we've made a lot of advances in miniaturization and just optimizing where we place the electronics that we now have a smaller, lighter frame, which is the Optics that we're announcing here. Um, but that's not it. We already see the, when we measure engagement and retention on our glasses, so how often do you use them, and then after some period of time, are you still using them actively? Those numbers are highest when we have clear lenses or transition lenses, which means that we're already seeing the behavior that people are trying to use them indoors or from outdoor to indoor transition means it works great, where I'm outside doing something, I'm on the phone, I walk inside, the lenses go clear and I can keep doing what I'm doing.

22:14 Um, so the Ray-Ban Meta Optics, they're not just, so there's a lot of things to like about them. I'm wearing them here. You have, we're able to thin out the arms, the front frames are thinner, they're also, uh, a little bit flatter to be more, um, optical friendly. The nose pads are replaceable, they come with three or four different pads that you can put in, so it's the right fit on your nose. The tips are adjustable, so an optician can warm these and then bend them to help make sure that they stay on your face well. The, um, temples, uh, you have overextension hinges, so that they're more comfortable to put on and they squeeze against your head comfortably.

22:51 Um, so there's a lot of advances, and this is just the hardware to make sure that it's uh, very optical friendly. Um, we're all, you know, we're we just had an event, um, the SOL Xotica has a switch um event in Orlando I was at a few weeks ago where we announced this to opticians so we expect this to be in optical channels. So if you wherever you go to buy your optical glasses now, your optometrist should hopefully have these glasses that they're able to help get you the right lenses for your prescription and help work for you. So we're really going all in and we think that we're seeing all these trends in the data that people want the opportunity to wear them inside as their everyday optical glasses and um we hope this is a product that people like for that. And then so talk a little bit about the I mean we're we're kind of living in this open claw moment in a way where people are thinking about giving AI access to a lot of what they do to be able to take action for them.

23:49 And I'm thinking again like if I'm at my work computer all day long and have a pair of you know these optics on with my prescription maybe there's going to be new use cases for me. So have you thought those and how does that sort of fit into your vision of building AI wearables? I mean I think there's a lot of it so I mean the when you think about so when you go from AI the way that we've experienced it to agents, that leap is that instead of prompting the AI saying write me something that does this or write code that does this, you can give it a goal and it will figure out how to accomplish that. So you can say um I'm trying to debug why I'm using coding one I'm a software engineer by background so please bear with me but I can say something like um the behavior I get when the battery is low doesn't feel right. It currently says this when it's low on battery in my ear and I would like to change it to this and the agent can go and figure out where you know what piece of code uh that's defined in and how to adjust it and create a diff that you can then prepare to submit as an engineer.

24:58 The advance to uh open claw is you see um you see a few things. One is that you're able to what engineers would call uh creating a cron job, but you're able to schedule things that happen regularly on your behalf. So, for example, every day at um in the middle of the night right now, I have well, every Sunday right now, I have my claw go and help create a schedule for the week that I then send to our nanny, which has, you know, the kids schedule each day of the week, and it does that automatically. It's scheduled, which is a new thing. And the second is the claw can figure things out that it doesn't yet know how to do. So, it's able to reason through things and develop new skills it didn't have previously.

25:44 I think for wearables, that creates a bunch of possibilities. I mean, you think about I go through my day, and I'm constantly writing down things that I need to remember to do later. Like, you and you and I can have a conversation. We were just talking before this about um pizza that I'd like to try in New York that your your buddy's open. And normally, I'd write down you know, pizza, Detroit pizza in New York, you know, write down the name and plan to follow up with you on it. I could just tell um my claw here's what here's the follow-up I plan to do, and it can take care of that for me. Similarly, um well, I can give you a number of examples that are down that line, but I think that is >> Let's hear more, actually. I'm I'm interested in the examples.

26:27 Um for example, you'd say, you know, this this weekend's a exciting weekend for me. The um Yankees are in town for opening weekend. They get playing against the Giants, so they're Wednesday through Saturday. I've got tickets for Saturday. Ordered that many months ago, cuz this I'm a Yankees fan, born and raised in New York. My kids I'm working on them being Yankees fans, as well. Uh organized a big thing. I've 20 tickets, inviting friends. And normally, you'd write down remember to send an email with the ticket details to people who are coming.

26:59 But you can just tell your claw hey, draft an email for me to these four people. Just say their names. Don't say their names. Just to these four people with the ticket details that you can find in my email. And it just does it. >> And it should just be able to do that. And you this is the way you use it. This is you know, we've got we're trying out a whole bunch of different tools. I certainly have. I'm using using them and yeah, using like that today. And so when your your vision of with the with the glasses could be instead of having to like cuz I think the the way that you speak with open claws through WhatsApp. Most people do it through WhatsApp. That's yeah, you can use many different chat apps, but a lot of people use WhatsApp. So is your thought then again if just I'm trying to flush out the product vision here. If you have a pair of glasses like this with you all your while you're working, right? Which I guess is the case for you right now. You could just say something to it and then some agentic engine on the back end will be able to do these use cases for you.

28:00 That's Yeah, that I mean that's a pretty good articulation of it. Um I mean I think of it in two ways. One is and it's in two directions. One is um as I'm going through my day and there's something I you know, a lot of it's funny how many people in tech decide that the thing that they need to invent at their next startup is a like a task app to just help you you know, track the things that you need to do.

28:25 >> Mhm. And I think instead as things come up like oh shoot, I forgot to you know, I forgot to send out the email with the details for the game or I forgot to send out a birthday invite for you know, my kids birthday coming up. You can just say, hey, I forgot to do that. Draft it for me and I'll look at it tonight. Mhm. At some point you can say send it on my behalf, but I think we're still kind of at a in a draft version. I think that's that's one end of it. The second is I like to describe it's you know, imagine if you had the perfect person sitting right next to you who will whisper in your ear at the right time.

29:02 So, like, you know, my wife is very good at, you know, elbowing me. Like, if I'm about to say something that I'm going to regret, my wife is really good at letting me know that I'm about to do that. That's good. I'm too quick. I always just blurt it out. I feel bad for her. See, so I mean, this is a scenario that might work for you. Yeah. Oh, maybe okay. You're saying the glasses can be like it. Don't It's like, you know, I'm about to I'm about to say that I'll regret or I just can't think of the word you know, I cannot think of the movie or the actor or the the restaurant or the thing that I'm trying to think of. Or you have these um you know, other examples like, how often do you have a conversation with someone where you're like, "Oh, you're going to St. Louis.

29:45 Let me tell you I'll I'll send you a thing later that has the places that I recommend in St. Louis." Yes. I do that maybe 5% of the time. Like, I promised everybody to to I was going to send you the name of the pizza place that I'm recommending. Nice Detroit pizza, Brooklyn and Manhattan. But, I could have just said it and to the smart thing and then it would have sent it for me. >> And it could have sent uh yeah, it could have sent it could have sent me a WhatsApp or a text message or something that just so then I had it. I wouldn't forget it. Um but it you know, if you if you put it out there on your podcast, I think you you'll still get a lot broader distribution than uh than the agent.

30:20 >> I I hope so, but you never know. But, that is interesting. I mean, like, again with this idea of reminders, um you know, I think it would be great, for instance, if I'm wearing something that is sort of paying attention to what I'm doing and it can, you know, when I was with Boz, uh Andrew Bozworth, the CTO of Meta, year and a half ago, 2 years ago maybe at this point. One of the things he talked about was these glasses can be aware of your situation. Mhm. So, um it could potentially be something that is like an open claw functionality, but we'll wait until that conversation that I'm having is over and I say bye and then it can whisper in my ear, "Hey, by the way, like do you want me to do that thing you were saying?"

31:06 Exactly. I think I think yeah, a lot of us right now are feeling like we just get too many notifications as we're going through the day, whether it's your phone buzzing or your watch buzzing or um and you know, one of the things people are nervous about, for good reason, is that hey, if you're wearing more wearables or ones that are you know, even more intimate, meaning if you've got display glasses on, what you don't want is a one more place to put a bunch of notifications that distract you as you're going through the day, but the potential of the wearables that if they have context of are you talking whether or not I'm talking at the moment or what am I saying or who am I talking to, they should be able to really intelligently filter out whether it's the right moment to deliver something or the wrong moment, too. Right.

31:56 You know, it's interesting cuz we I mean, we're already my wife and I are already using like smart speakers in our house to do some of this. Mhm. Um but yeah, I think it could be interesting if it's if it is something that's done in glasses. And you know, I think the one especially contextually aware. And I think the one thing that I wonder is you know, so much of the talk around AI is it's a level if it's going to level things up and it's you know, sort of this revolutionary thing and I wonder is that that revolutionary? Like shouldn't we be expecting more of it and maybe I'm just like perpetually dissatisfied um and unappreciative of what's happening, but I'm curious what you think. Like is that really a revolution or is that something that just helps us be a little bit more productive?

32:40 AI in general or smart notification more intelligence around notifications? >> I think that just the AI again that we talked about that's listening and can handle these tasks for us. Um I think it's going to be pretty revolutionary. I think well, I think it'll be both. I think there'll be a number of things that each individual one is tiny. Like it's just a Oh, yeah, that's like a small improvement. But if you add that up throughout the day or throughout the week or throughout the month, it's the sum of that will be meaningful.

33:11 And then similarly, I do think that the AI will do things for you that you're shocked it was able to do and will find pretty revolutionary. I mean, there are small things. I mean, the the minute I stopped running with my phone, and I go for some pretty long runs, and I do need to be able to contact other people while I'm out there because things can go sideways. Also, I'm a father, and so if I need to be reachable.

33:35 >> I need to be reachable. Um the the day I was able to stop bringing my phone with me because I had a cellular connected watch was a pretty big thing. And I think for many people that feels like Oh, big deal. You can do phone calls on your on your watch now. I usually have my phone. But for for me, that was a a major thing. But that's an example like small things that add up. I do think agentic AI is really going to be able to do a lot of things for people that will feel like it is super helpful. Okay. Um there is a question about whether like the best device will work or the best AI assistant will work. And I want to cover that when we come back right after this.

34:15 And we're back here on Big Technology podcast with Alex Himel. He's the VP of wearables at Meta. Alex, before the break, we were talking about what will enable a company to win this AI wearable uh you know, battle. Will it be the form factor? Will it be the sleekness of their device or will it be the assistant inside? And I think we're going to have a handful of companies going after this. Obviously, uh you guys are far out in front of people. You've had this in market for a long time.

34:44 But it's no secret that OpenAI is planning, you know, not just a device, but a family of devices. Google has their own set of devices. And uh Amazon has the Echo in market and Apple may be adding some form of maybe it's internal Apple models, maybe it's a version of Gemini uh into their headphones. That's just the the dot. So, uh So, I think there's a strong argument to be made that the company that has the best assistant will be the one that takes everything. Because again, if you're trusting this with like to be deep in your life and to be um and to be, you know, responsible for some of your activities, you're going to want to use the best option.

35:29 So, I'm curious if you agree with that. And if you do, does that mean that Meta to win this battle needs to have the best AI assistant on the market? I think it's going to be a combination of things. I think that when we talk about wearables, I think if people don't like the device, they're not going to wear it. True. I think it needs to be comfortable, it needs to be stylish, especially if it's glasses or some or even watches. If you don't like the way it fits on you and what it says about you, then you you're not going to wear it. Even if it does even if it's 20% better in terms of functionality than than the alternative.

36:11 I also think the software needs to be really amazing. And so, um I mean, we're it's no it's also no secret. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of a lot of the devices you mentioned were, you know, these are rumors. I think I've heard heard those rumors from many places, so there's probably some credibility to them. Um >> Well, well, I will say actually open at opening eye for sure is not a rumor.

36:32 They are building a family of devices. Fair. >> Google is building these devices and Amazon has the Echo in market. I think the only one that's rumored is Apple. That's a fair point. The the Apple ones are rumored a number of others have been have been some announcements. So that that's fair. I I was just commenting that you know, they're not actually in the market yet, so I can't um can't really react to what exactly they're doing or Right.

36:53 >> pros and cons of devices. Um also pretty well known that we're investing heavily in AI here here at Meta. It's We've recruited quite a team. Um we're investing heavily in in model training and other things and I think we've got I think our AI and our software needs to be really good. I mean, we're going to be assuming everyone enters the market, we're going to be competing with companies who um have released devices with really high quality. You know, good performance, um devices you can depend on every day. So our quality needs to be really good. And then the AI needs to be amazing. And you know, we're we've been working on it internally. I think that that's pretty well known. We're using a bunch of the new models internally and feeling pretty good about the progress we're making. I think we're going to have some really exciting things to show people uh in the first half of this year as we start to launch new models and um new features on top of them, new features on mobile phones, but also new features in wearables that I think are going to be pretty good. All right, looking forward to that. I guess the point I'm making is it seems more than more than uh in this more than other types of computing, um it's kind of winner takes all.

38:08 That that might be my my perspective. Like if you're going to have an agent that you so trust with everything, you're probably going to have one. Doesn't that sound right? Like it's like you'll have one inbox. It doesn't really work to have multiple multiple email addresses. I think I There there's a number of reasons why I think you'd use why many people would use one assistant more than many. I mean, one is Mhm. you pay for each of them and so you probably want to pay for fewer rather than more. Second, like the more um you work with it and it learns about you, the better it'll perform outside of underlying capabilities. So, I I do think that people will for the most part choose one assistant, but they may also choose one assistant for different tasks. Right. I mean, I'm sure I'm a bit of an outlier since I'm right in the middle of the technology, but I use a bunch of different assistants and I use different ones for different things that I'm trying to do.

39:01 That could be point in time uh based on what's what's better at what right now and maybe that'll consolidate as as the models mature, but we are very focused on we want our glasses to be the ones that offer people the broadest selection of brands and styles that we think people will like to wear and in making our software the best. And we've been I mean, you There are other devices in the market, but we have been um We believe there's going to be a lot more competition coming than I think that we've than than we've faced than we faced to date. Part of it is that a lot of people have tried to build glasses and it didn't work out at first.

39:45 Ourselves included. Our first Our first launch didn't go as well as we'd hoped it to. But then when others pulled back from the market, I think we doubled and tripled down and I think, you know, when you're looking at seems like now every year or maybe more frequently than that, we're launching new hardware. Right. It's because we've been investing heavily for many years and you're starting to see uh the fruits of that come to market. I was in here I think 2017 or 2018 and myself and uh my editor, we had a long conversation with Mark Zuckerberg about some tech-related thing or a new launch at Facebook and towards the end it was almost like a throwaway, but he was talking about how important it was going to be to have a computing wearable uh like a pair of glasses and I was like, oh, that's a story. And we didn't end up writing it, but it just does go to show that Meta has been thinking about this for a very long time uh and and I guess what we're seeing today um the devices that work and are good and people enjoy using it's probably like an outgrowth of um of the metaverse uh and and Oculus work here, but also not just like uh let's try this. Like to me it seems like it's been kind of core for almost a decade here.

40:59 That's definitely true. When we acquired Oculus, part of the logic was it wasn't you know, Oculus it's a virtual reality headset where you're looking at you know, an immersive view. Um at the time when we acquired Oculus, part of the rationale was there was a research division led by Michael Abrash that was looking at augmented reality technologies. Augmented reality translates into glasses and wearables. And right out of the gate, you know, we started investing in the Orion prototype, which is what we showed about a year and a half ago now publicly and have continued to show.

41:34 And that's been in the works for as long as Oculus has been here and that was always part of the the big vision. Mark's had incredible conviction that this is something that was going to be critical and that we were going to invest in the space even when you know, we we certainly a lot of invention we've been working on here. We certainly had some some highs, we had some lows where you know, a certain piece of technology didn't hit um the progress that we're hoping to at various stages. Even through that we we really continued to invest even when you know, there were there were reasonable times to put doubt in it. I think we're glad certainly glad that we did. Um but it really took a lot of conviction. I give a lot of credit to Mark, also to Boz, um Right. for having a lot of conviction in what we were doing. So, speaking of Boz, I was listening to you on the Boz to the Future podcast. And and you spoke about the ambition. And to me, it's it's pretty interesting because you talked about how I think it was the Orion glasses, which have the screen in them, which are not publicly available yet.

42:38 Um but there is a version with the screen available, the display, that is available to uh to folks to to pick up. But you said like, when people tried on Orion, it was the first time that they felt like a pair of glasses could replace a phone. Mhm. And so, I I am curious because, you know, with with the big question about AI devices is is it a new category and everyone has one and do you the so-called uh legacy devices or is it a replacement? So, is the ambition here to replace the phone?

43:09 And I think the ambition of the phone at some point was to replace laptops and desktops, and I think those certainly haven't gone away. I actually find myself using them more and more in the world of AI right now. Um but mobile phones have taken off. I mean, the the number of devices sold and used and I mean, it's they're ubiquitous for all kinds of uh things. I think wearables should be similar. Mhm. I mean, we're expecting them to be ubiqui- At some point, we think that they'll be ubiquitously used by people, providing a ton of value. That doesn't mean phones are going to go away, but I think you'll see wearables be used for some of the things that you do on phones today and a bunch of things that you don't use phones for today. I mean, there's certain there's certain things you just wouldn't do because it's, you know, one of the crazy things is that some of the technology around being able to recognize what you're looking at has been around for quite some time on mobile phones, but you don't hold up your phone to try to make sense of the world in front of you cuz it's just kind of a weird behavior.

44:13 >> do, but Some people do. It's not a normal thing to do. I might be one of those people at times, but I I don't see it. >> be guilty as well. Yeah, I don't see it that way. Whereas with a wearable, it's a pretty natural behavior. And that's one of the most frequent AI use cases that we see on our glasses. Just what is it that I'm looking at? Oh, it's this building. It's this landmark. It's this type of plant. Don't eat that mushroom.

44:33 Um That's important. It's >> Or do eat that mushroom. Also, you shouldn't be randomly eating a mushroom that's in front of you, but we you know, we're trying to give advice where we can. Um So, I I think that and then I think the reaction that people had with Orion was because, you know, he you did the demo. We show you a bunch of th- example things that you can do with the glasses. And I think with the really big field of view display and the ability to place content in the space in front of you, it's easy to imagine all the other things that you can do with it. I mean, we didn't show in there Maybe it was a bad example. I'll use it anyway cuz of the time we're in in the year. We didn't show that you could watch March Madness basketball games on a virtual television while still in room with other people.

45:14 That was an awesome use case last week as the You did that? It's pretty great. You put a browser window and you just kind of put it like if you're around me, I can put it right there and watch uh the tournament games. Also, the wrestling tournament the NCAA wrestling tournament was at the same time and and my alma mater Stanford did great in that, too. So, that's another thing you watch. What is your facial recognition plans?

45:35 There was a New York Times article talked about this feature called name tag. The Times said it would let wearers of the smart glasses identify people and get information about them via Meta's artificial intelligence assistant. I saw the article. I'm familiar with the one that you're mentioning. I mean, it's it's worth noting just out of the gate, you know, we do not have a feature that that's launched that it helps you right we we don't have a feature called that or that does that feature that's launched in the glasses.

46:04 It is one of the most frequently requested features from people. Mhm. I mean, we hear, you know, we hear from our um our blind and low vision community that they wish they knew who was in front of them. Um Mhm. who was walking by. Um we hear from um people who go to conferences and events. It would be great to be, you know, you're going there to meet people. It'd be nice to be able to recognize people that you're meeting. We hear from just a number of people, you know, just anecdotally, "Hey, I wish" unprovoked "What I really wish these could do is help me remember the names of the people I've met before." And so, we get a lot of um we get a lot of asks. I don't think we're the only company that's heard that before, you know, if it's certainly been developed and prototyped um by a number of companies that that we've heard about.

46:53 But to launch a feature like that requires being really thoughtful with how it works, making sure it's privacy first, making sure that it's not creepy, making sure that um it's providing value while not making people uncomfortable. I mean, the the fundamental talent of these devices, if I'm wearing them and you're uncomfortable with me wearing them, I'm probably going to stop wearing them. Yeah, they're not worth anything. Yeah. And so, we've got to be really conscious of that and with each feature that we're looking at, that's something that we're going to have to be conscious of um as we go. So, this is one of the things that has come up. It's it's one of the trickier uh trickier things for privacy reasons, user comfort reasons. There's also some legal considerations. So, it's certainly not something we take lightly and it's something that we um really think about. There are versions of that of the of that feature out in the wild right now. Um you see it a lot for um communities that the blind low vision community, especially, you see versions of that. I think Microsoft has an app that you can use for that. Um, but I don't know. We're not We don't have something ready to launch. We don't have something launched. It's just one of the things that we're thinking about.

48:04 Uh, well, first of all, I'll say this. Uh, you know, I think a year and a half ago I was at um, Nolan Arbaugh's house in Yuma, Arizona. He's the first Neuralink patient. And he's paralyzed and can use computers thanks to Neuralink. So, I I think that's one of the more underappreciated parts of wearables or even brain computer interface is that the accessibility component is amazing. He's been paralyzed was paralyzed for eight years before he was able to use that device. And uh, and then like literally couldn't use the internet.

48:34 Could only do with voice on like an Echo. And then, you know, started playing video games again. He played a video game against me and he beat me and that's and that's amazing. Um, but I definitely I I definitely sort of the privacy concerns and I obviously you're aware of them. I I see why people would not want to live in a world where somebody can wear a a device that can identify me. Yeah, totally understand and I think if you end up in a place where you know, someone you've never met before walks up to you on the street and says, "Hi Alex."

49:12 you know, and asks you a question, it's weird. It's really weird. And that, you know, that goes against a whole bunch of social norms and it feels creepy. I think a lot of the features all the features we're trying to build are taking things that are normal interactions and trying to make them a little bit easier. Um, so like the idea of a name tag is like, what is a what is a time where you wouldn't wear a name tag?

49:39 And you could have a virtual version. If I were at the office right now, it would not be weird at all for a co-worker to know my name because I walk around with a badge that has my name on it the whole time. And so a digital version of that would not be weird at all. Like it's it's common behavior. >> Um similarly, like where where get knowing someone's name is most useful is I've met you, you've told me your name, and I just cannot remember it. It could be it's a it's a new meeting I'm in.

50:09 Uh we're meeting for the first time. We just went around the table of 10 people, and I got nine out of 10 in my head, and I'm missing the 10th. Um or you know, you're we have kids in the same class, and we've met once 2 months ago, and I just I know your kids' name, and I cannot remember yours. If only there was an app that would allow me to maybe add you as a friend, and we could connect that way.

50:35 Um the I've you know, it's this is this is the time the AI should help. I can think of some apps like that, but I can't remember the names of them. You might have told me that. It's not meta. Uh okay, that's interesting. So so just to conclude this this part, um you said not launched, but that doesn't mean it's not under development. It's one of the ideas that I think comes up with every company in the space. It's it's it's it's definitely not launched. It's something that's come up a bunch. We would not rule out the idea that we have something in that space, but uh it would have to be really well thought out and and really well done and done in a way that people felt comfortable with it. Otherwise, we wouldn't it just wouldn't make any sense.

51:16 >> can basically rule out this idea that I would like be able to, you know, take a look at random people on the street and know their name by looking them by looking at them through the glasses. Yeah, I I just don't think that's a feature that people want or really comfortable with. Okay. All right, it's good to get your perspective on that. Uh let's talk a little bit about how this kind of changes the AI infrastructure story.

51:40 Um you know, it's kind of interesting cuz we're going to a place where we have smaller models, and um some of them don't have to run them in, you know, a multi-billion dollar data center build out. You can just run them on device. So, you know, Meta is an interesting company cuz it's in the middle of doing that big build out, but it also has devices that I would imagine someday would want to run an AI model on device. Mhm. Can you talk a little bit about that balance and sort of does one eventually cancel each other out or do you need both?

52:11 Well, the so, the um servers and data centers that companies are building out, Meta included, you know, there's two kind of core functions that they serve. One is the training of the models. And so, that certainly happens in data centers and that's where it's going to continue to happen and that's where a lot of the investment is going right now. And the other, you know, as you say, it's running the inference. So, it's when you're using the model, where are those models running to answer the prompts or to agentically help you with tasks. Um the the former, I think the model training, I think it's going to consistently run in data centers.

52:46 On where inference is served, um there's a number of reasons to try to move that to devices that are not in data centers. Um one is the latency and reliability will be better. You know, you've used apps on your phone and the more things are local, the less network interruptions or low bandwidth or, you know, packet loss can cause issues. And so, that's one reason to do it. Second is cost to the user. Mhm. >> paying the fees to whether what whatever assistant you're using right now, you know, a lot of those fees are because it costs real money to be um serving you. And then you have usage caps. You wouldn't have that if you used that uh model on device. Yeah. And you know, all you know, a lot of the a lot of that cost goes into power right now.

53:33 And if it's on your device, you know, you're on the hook for charging your device and, you know, whatever power it runs. Um and so, I think that you're going to see like there's certainly a lot of reasons. Oh, and pri- privacy is the the other obvious one. You know, you're in control of your data if it stays on your device. The things working in the opposite direction are um smaller models are not as capable at certain tasks. And so the real math, you know, in evaluation to do there is for a given set of tasks, how well does the model perform in a smaller version of it that's run locally? And if it performs well, I I think there's a lot of incentive to have it run locally for for everyone, for the person using it, for the end user, also for um the the business like us providing it.

54:21 Um but I I think you'll end up with a bit of a mix. The more complex things are going to have to run on servers um or on personal devices that are larger and more capable. I think I want to end on the story of how this uh integration of AI into the Ray-Ban Meta's came about because initially they were they were not envisioned with the AI assistant inside. And then you're driving with your kids one day and what happens?

54:52 Well, so we had the the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, you know, we they were the second device that we were launching, the second version of Ray-Bans that we're launching with Essilor Luxottica. And it was one of the most heavily debated um devices that we were working on cuz it was it wasn't a major the first version hadn't done as well as we had hoped. It wasn't a major technical leap from the first one. And so we're like, I don't know, is it worth doing or should we just go straight to the display glasses?

55:20 And which were under development at the time. >> Which were already multiple multiple versions of them were already under development at the time. And then AI gen AI large language models took off out of nowhere. I I do remember I was on a it was a Saturday, I had my kid in the child seat in the backseat and I start getting a wall of text from Mark on WhatsApp, which led with, "Hey, I think these glasses might be a great AI device." and then poof, just like thought after thought.

55:48 So, you know, as any responsible parent would do, I pull over to the side of the freeway and um went back and forth with him and by that was a Saturday, by Monday we had pivoted 200 people on the team to be building AI for these glasses and the rest is history, although I think the AI uh gave us an idea for a vision of what the glasses could eventually be with a really high ceiling. Ironically, all the features that we weren't sure if they were a big enough technical leap turned out to be a big enough technical leap and I think it would have given us a lot of the initial usage and traction. The audio is crossed a threshold where it's loud enough and the sound quality is good enough to be talking on the phone and listening to music and the image quality is good enough to be sharing videos to Instagram or, you know, the app of your choosing that you're that you feel good about and that people like to engage with.

56:40 I can imagine the kids in the back getting kind of restless and you being like, "Listen, daddy's launching a new category of device. We're going to have to relax." Yeah, and fast forward two years and Here it is. >> the number one question in my house is when there's going to be a kids version of the glasses cuz they really want to have a pair of their dad's glasses that they can wear out. Okay, before we leave, let's just run down the glasses that exist today. Sure. So, there's the standard Ray-Ban Metas. Uh then you have the the Oakley Oakley Meta Houston.

57:08 lifestyle. There is, I believe on your side here is the display glasses. That's the uh pair of glasses with a screen inside of them that are available for sale. How much do those cost? These are $799 including the neural band. >> And there's a band that you can use that takes your neural pulses to be able to um uh control the screen and And are these Ray-Ban Meta optics. Um which are lighter and they're coming out April 16th.

57:38 We're announcing them at the end of March. They hit shelves in the early to mid-April. Okay. And you missed the Oakley Meta Vanguard, our sport glass. >> Okay. That's right. Great for biking, skiing, running. Yeah. Now the running use cases is definitely fun and I think maybe we'll save my my back from I was actually running and checking my phone and ended up pulling my back on a run cuz I kept looking at my pace so often. So if I could have that in the screen, that alone would be worth might be worth all your efforts. Get you a cellular watch, too. You got to stop pulling your phone. That's right. All right, Alex, great to see you. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks, Alex. Thank you everybody for listening and watching and we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.